Saturday morning came around with clear skies and the promise of it being a bit warmer as well. Joel Thompson of Montana Troutaholic Outfitters and I decided that we had such a good time on the upper portion of the river that we floated a couple days before that we would pick up where we left off and do another six miles of river this time with his wife Debbie, who's always down to go.
We were pretty stoked to get back on the water and packed up the truck with all the gear needed for the day, hitched the raft, picked up breakfast in town, made a quick gas station stop for coffee, brews, and snacks, and then we were off for the upper river put in.
Once there, we readied raft with gear and we were on the water in minutes. A few highlights of the day included Debbie catching two large brown trout within minutes of each other and then another one coming undone that was quite a bit larger than the first two but really bent the rod over double, catching my first bull trout in a run where you'd just expect one to be, Joel having a large bull trout roll out of a deep spot to rush his fly all the way back to the raft, lunch under a stand of ponderosa pines, (finally) picking off a dry fly eating cutthroat after several misses and trying to get my shit together after hucking streamers all day, and overall just taking in a really wild stretch of freestone that we had to ourselves all day long.
I know there are more photos in this post than most but it was hard to whittle it down since this was just such a stunning stretch of water. Click on the photos to view in a larger format.
We came off the water in the late evening tired from a full day float and pushing the raft over the boney spots but seeing a dozen miles of this upper upper stretch of water over two different days was totally worth the work.
We were pretty stoked to get back on the water and packed up the truck with all the gear needed for the day, hitched the raft, picked up breakfast in town, made a quick gas station stop for coffee, brews, and snacks, and then we were off for the upper river put in.
Once there, we readied raft with gear and we were on the water in minutes. A few highlights of the day included Debbie catching two large brown trout within minutes of each other and then another one coming undone that was quite a bit larger than the first two but really bent the rod over double, catching my first bull trout in a run where you'd just expect one to be, Joel having a large bull trout roll out of a deep spot to rush his fly all the way back to the raft, lunch under a stand of ponderosa pines, (finally) picking off a dry fly eating cutthroat after several misses and trying to get my shit together after hucking streamers all day, and overall just taking in a really wild stretch of freestone that we had to ourselves all day long.
I know there are more photos in this post than most but it was hard to whittle it down since this was just such a stunning stretch of water. Click on the photos to view in a larger format.
We came off the water in the late evening tired from a full day float and pushing the raft over the boney spots but seeing a dozen miles of this upper upper stretch of water over two different days was totally worth the work.
3 comments:
Nice trip Cameron!
Which rods did you use?
Jay...I used three different glass rods on this day of the trip with the Epic 686, Kenney 8055, and Graywolf Rods yellow glass four weight which was rolled by McFarland.
The Epic 686 is perfect for hucking streamers and the other two were set up with dry flies for sippers.
The coolest plate I have ever seen!!!
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